We like to be ahead of the times now and then. This week, it’s emerged that Nintendo is feeling the pinch because of a little device known as the R4 Revolution. In Thailand, we’ve had the R4 available in malls and shops for a long time. It’s old news, but apparently people in the US are just picking up on it.
Basically, it’s a device that means you never have to buy another Nintendo DS game again. It works – with every game. You use filesharing services to get your games and then you download them. Slap them on a tiny memory stick and you can have as many games on a cart as your memory device can handle. Not that we do this, of course, but this is what we’ve heard.
Filesharing sites have been full of Nintendo DS roms for ages. We’re surprised it’s taken this long for the global media to pick up on this little filesharing snippet. Nintendo hasn’t gone after the filesharing services, but rather, the people marketing and exporting the R4. Good luck with that one.
It seems as if everyone is cashing in – or not – on the whole free music download thing. Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Coldplay have all experimented with the idea, but it took Keane to come along and just do the exact same thing without really giving any reason for doing so. Much in the same way as band’s music is just plain dull, so came the announcement that the band’s new single, “Spiralling”, would be released as a free music download.
About 500,000 happy Keane fans got their digital hands on the track, leading to high expectations for the band’s new album, Perfect Symmetery. Who knows, perhaps Keane will come with such innovative ideas as using holographic images of the lads on the album’s artwork.
We’re not really keen on Keane, but it is a positive thing to see more bands giving away free music. We can’t wait for some more good bands to take up the initiative, though.
Yes! She’s back again. Jammie Thomas is one name that we just will never be able to forget. The world’s most famous filesharing user, who last year was ordered to pay $222,000 for sharing a handful of songs, may see her case thrown out of court. This is the kind of light at the end of the tunnel that has seemed so far off for Jammie Thomas, a single mum from Brainerd.
The case may be thrown out of court because the judge was not aware of a precedent in a prior case. The prior case stated that making a track available for filesharing is not a violation of copyright laws. In Jammie’s case, the judge told the jury that it is.
The argument from Jammie’s side is that there is nothing to prove that the songs were shared with anyone other than the record companies who were snooping on her. This would be a major blow for the music industry after using this landmark case to make an example of the filesharing community.
There are heaps of Russian websites out there offering cheap music downloads, but now there is one a Chinese service trying to get a piece of the pie, supposedly offering legal music downloads for knockdown prices. The Chinese websites has teamed up with an American partner. The price of each track? 3 cents. That’s a heck of a lot less than most music websites.
www.wa3.cn offers more than one million songs from international artists in genres such as pop, hip hop, dance, rock, blues and country. There are popular and underground artists included on the roster.
You basically pay the equivalent of about $3 and then get 88 music downloads. How this works, we have no idea. At the moment, you have to live in China to take advantage of the service. It’s anybody’s guess whether this is totally legit. And with music downloads so cheap, it kind of begs the question as to why anyone would even bother. No word on if this will be thrown open to other countries.
Tribe of Noise (www.TribeofNoise.com), a new service for free legal music, launched recently. Artists allow their music to be distributed through the website and then fans can get their free music downloads without fear of downloading copyrighted material.
While you may not have heard of most of the bands offered on the Tribe of Noise website, this is a good chance to check out some unsigned talent and download music that can be played on any MP3 player or music device.
Anyone can download the music, use it and share it, so long as the artist is always attributed.
The concept of this resource for free music downloads isn’t exactly something new, but the more websites there are on the Internet offering free music, the better it is for fans around the world. The trouble with a lot of these websites is that it usually takes a while before they have a decent range of songs for people to download.
The UK’s music scene has been on something of a rollercoaster ride when it comes to music downloads, filesharing and how people get their music. While the UK’s six biggest ISPs have agreed to start policing the Internet and send warning letters to some of the six million people who use filesharing services in the UK, 7digital has rolled out a service to allow ISPs to provide music to their customers.
7digital would offer DRM-free music that ISPs could then offer their subscribers. The music could be free, or it may be offered in a pay-per-song or subscription format. Nobody is sure yet.
ISPs have traditionally been keen on offering music to customers, but the government and the music industry have really forced ISPs’ hands when it comes to cracking down on filesharing. This would certainly be one way to attempt to appease disgruntled Internet users in the UK.
There’s an interesting opinion piece on the Guardian website that is calling a deal between ISPs and major record labels a “suicide note from the music industry”. The deal is that ISPs and record labels will spy on people using filesharing networks for illegal music downloads and then restrict their access to the Internet as a result.
The move is a real threat to user privacy and can only be construed as a bad thing for the UK. ISPs and record labels now have the power to screw with people’s Internet access as and when they feel like it.
They claim that the move will only allow them to tamper with the connection of people violating copyright laws. It’s unclear what sort of an impact this will have on filesharing in the UK, but if your Internet connection suddenly drops off or cuts out, now you know why.
The UK’s biggest-selling artist this year, Duffy, has said that she doesn’t care about filesharing and people getting their music downloads illegally. Obviously being the UK’s biggest-selling artist she doesn’t have to worry too much about making money, but she did say that she thinks kids will buy more records as they get older and have more money. We doubt that.
Surely if pop stars such as Duffy say they don’t care about filesharing then people, kids and adults, are sent out a clear message that filesharing is OK. By extension, this would mean that they probably wouldn’t buy more records as they got older.
While it is always interesting when stars come out in support of filesharing, it’s usually more effective if they can give good reasoning for their support of people sharing free music. Duffy doesn’t appear to have put much thought into her off-the-cuff comments about free music downloads and filesharing.
While the UK government has announced a public consultation on the matter of filesharing, it’s unclear how much impact public opinion will have on the matter. Adding fuel to the fire, the UK government recently announced a target to reduce illegal filesharing by 80% by the year 2011.
This secret target was revealed in a leaked letter written by Business Minister Baroness Vadera.
The number of people illegally filesharing in the UK is estimated at about six or seven million. Key to curbing this trend, as Vadera says, are effective “letter writing, awareness raising and other measures.”
The letter writing refers to the letters Virgin has been sending to subscribers warning them of the perils of filesharing. Whether writing millions of letters would be enough to cut illegal filesharing by 80% remains to be seen.
The government has requested that the UK’s top six ISPs send out 1,000 letters a week to subscribers suspected of surfing for illegal music downloads.
Filesharing in the UK has hit something of a stumbling block, with the government, ISPs and record labels seemingly doing everything in their power to deter UK people from using filesharing services. OiNk was raided and Virgin started sending letters to its subscribers, but now the general public is to be given its say.
The government has set up a public consultation on the issue of filesharing to find out what people think about the matter. Some have been very supportive of the crackdown on filesharing and copyright infringement, while others have been critical of the heavy-handed approach that is edging towards the US system whereby people are sued for using filesharing services.
The UK government basically wants to know what the public thinks about filesharing. Perhaps they should have thrown this one out there a couple of years back. Hot topics include how far ISPs should go in the battle against piracy and whether filesharing traffic should be restricted.
